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Monday, January 25, 2016

Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FAR) has updated the jurisdictional thresholds for coverage under affirmative action laws for federal contractors and subcontractors. The regulations have not been amended, but an inflationary adjustment statute applicable to the Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 503) and the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 (VEVRAA) regulations allows the FAR to adjust the jurisdictional thresholds periodically for inflation. The Section 503 basic coverage threshold was increased from $10,000 to $15,000, and the VEVRAA basic coverage threshold was increased from $100,000 to $150,000. This could result in some contractors and subcontractors no longer being covered by affirmative action laws; however, the thresholds remain so low that it is unlikely to affect many contractors.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights and Toledo Public Schools announced today that the district has entered into a resolution agreement to ensure compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in providing equitable resources to African American students.

Company to Pay $115,000 and Change its Practices Following EEOC Lawsuit

PAUL, Minn. - Deluxe Financial Services Corp. (Deluxe), a Shoreview, Minn.-based check-printing and financial services corporation, has agreed to pay $115,000 as part of the settlement of a sex discrimination and harassment lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

The Illinois Equal Pay Act, which prohibits wage discrimination on the basis of gender, was amended, effective January 1, 2016, to cover all Illinois employers of any size. Before the amendment, the Act applied only to employers with four or more employees.

BALTIMORE -R.V. Associates Limited, doing business as Windsor Inn, violated federal law when its restaurant manager subjected female employees to severe and pervasive sexual harassment and retaliated against an employee who complained about the abusive treatment, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today.

Can an employer have different physical fitness standards for men and women without running afoul of Title VII? Yes, according to the Fourth Circuit that ruled that the FBI could reject a male agent candidate who failed his physical fitness test by not being able to do one additional push-up. Plaintiff Bauer sued the Department of Justice claiming that he had been discriminated against on the basis of his sex because the FBI applied a higher physical fitness requirement to him than to female candidates. The FBI claimed that it had established separate testing standards for men and women based on their innate physiological differences. Male candidates were required to do 30 push-ups, while women wanting to be special agents were required to do only 14. Plaintiff Bauer took the physical fitness test five different times, but failed each time by not being able to meet the push-up number.

On December 30, 2015, the Commonwealth Court in Pennsylvania unanimously found the Older Adults Protective Services Act’s (the Act) lifetime prohibition on the ability of individuals with convictions to hold certain jobs in nursing homes and long-term care facilities to be unconstitutional on its face, under its interpretation of the Pennsylvania state constitution.1 Specifically, the court held that the lifetime ban provisions violate a convicted individual’s due process rights because the individual is penalized for engaging in conduct that may have happened decades ago and is presumed unfit for the jobs at issue. The court also concluded that the law’s lifetime ban on the ability of convicted individuals to work for these types of employers is not “substantially related” to the purpose set out in the Act, which is to protect older persons from abuse, neglect and exploitation.

In the wake of Paris and San Bernandino, the EEOC has issued new “Questions and Answers” for employers concerning workers who are, or are perceived to be, Muslim or Middle Eastern. The agency issued companion questions and answers for employees.

The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights has pledged to make it easier for prospective students to find out if colleges they may want to attend have applied for or received exemptions to parts of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Under the law, religious colleges may receive exemptions to provisions that conflict with the teachings of their various faiths. In the last two years, many such colleges have sought and received exemptions that apply to gay, lesbian and transgender students. Many of these colleges bar those in same-sex relationships or who are transgender from being either students or employees. The Education Department has responded to requests for names of the colleges receiving exemptions, but some groups and some lawmakers have said the department should go further and make sure this information is public.

When Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act was passed in 1972 it stated, in part, “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” More than 40 years later, we have a law that was meant to protect many, but is too focused on a few — those participating in varsity-level collegiate sports.

​A new infobrief by ACE's Center for Policy Research and Strategy updates key statistics about women in higher education, examining issues like tenure, compensation and representation in high-ranking leadership positions, such as the presidency and membership on governing boards.

"Pipelines, Pathways, and Institutional Leadership: An Update on the Status of Women in Higher Education,” is part of the Higher Ed Spotlight series and continues the conversation that was started by “The White House Project: Benchmarking Women’s Leadership,” published in 2009, and “Benchmarking Women’s Leadership in the United States,” Colorado Women’s College at the University of Denver’s follow-up report in 2013.

For the past eight years Equal Employment Commissioner Tziona Koenig-Yair has fought dozens of employers discriminating against minorities, rolled out creative new tools for fighting the gender wage gap, and much more. In an interview with +972, she discusses affirmative action, the role of societal racism in the labor market, and her hopes for equal opportunity in Israel.

A jury found that a Toluca Lake man was discriminated against because of his gender when he was denied a job as a police dispatcher for the city of Burbank, where all the current dispatchers are women.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

“All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper.”

These words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were delivered on April 3, 1968, at the Mason Temple Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tennessee, the night before his assassination. This would be his last public address, closing out a mere 13 years of public advocacy for civil and human rights that began with a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in December 1955. And yet, despite its relative brevity, Dr. King and his leadership fundamentally changed our nation and served to inspire us to greater heights of social justice for generations of Americans. It is in recognition and tribute to his consequential leadership that we pause on this day to pay homage to his birth.

This speech in Memphis, often referenced as the “Mountaintop Address”, refers to a passage from Dr. King’s powerful conclusion, where he drew upon the religious imagery of Moses and Joshua and declared: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!”

But I’ve often thought that the most important, but too often overlooked, passage in the speech was his simple and yet powerful declaration that “All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper.” It is this language that demonstrates Dr. King’s brilliance as a leader, social critic and theorist. He refused to allow the civil and human rights movement, or his leadership, to be marginalized or “segregated” from the larger American narrative of freedom, justice and equality. He insisted throughout his public life that the fight for civil and human rights in America was interwoven with the very idea of “America” itself. This was the intellectual ground on which he fought and his efforts to connect his work with our nation’s most revered documents can be seen in the ubiquitous references throughout his speeches and writings from Montgomery to Memphis.

Listen to him make that connection at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery on December 5, 1955, rallying the movement minutes after he had been elected its leader, and just four days after Rosa Parks had been arrested:

“And we are not wrong, we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong.”

Again, some eight years later from his solitary jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama he wrote:

"One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, and thus carrying our whole nation back to the great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence."

Notwithstanding the failure of our nation and many of its leaders to make the promises of American democracy real for African Americans and others, Dr. King found real value and hope in these promises and in much of the rhetoric of America’s founding social and political documents. From what he saw as the all encompassing language of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal” to the principles and ideals embedded in the Constitution as expressed in its Preamble, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice. . .”, to the judicial rulings of the Supreme Court mandating equality under the law, and to the legislative acts affirming that full citizenship rights be accorded those previously denied in public transportation and commerce, voting rights, housing, education, and all spheres of civil rights. This, Dr. King believed was the great promise of America that was already evident in its many written documents. All that was needed was action to make the promises a reality for all.

Finally, I’ve always thought that the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, of all our holidays, is especially significant for AAAED and our members. No other national holiday more directly embodies the raison d'etre for why AAAED exist or represents the work of our members on a day-to-day basis. You, my colleagues, as much as any others, and perhaps more than most, can rightly lay claim to advancing Dr. King’s legacy and mantel, and the ideals and values for which he lived and died. So as you pursue your noble and righteous work in venues large and small; in education, corporate, government, and non-profit sectors; may you do so with courage, conviction, hopefulness and faithfulness to cause, ever mindful that Dr. King’s aspirations for our nation must be your own: “All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper.”

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today announced the latest edition of its federal sector Digest of Equal Employment Opportunity Law, which is available online. The Digest now includes hyperlinks so that stakeholders can easily access the full decisions which have been summarized. This quarterly publication, prepared by EEOC's Office of Federal Operations (OFO), features a wide variety of recent Commission decisions and federal court cases of interest. The current edition also includes a special year-end selection of notable EEOC decisions for fiscal year 2015 (which ended Sept. 30, 2015).

WASHINGTON - Stanley Martin Companies, LLC, one of the largest homebuilders in the Mid-Atlantic Region, will pay $45,000 and furnish significant equitable relief to resolve a federal sex-based pay discrimination lawsuit, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced today.

A recent decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has the two plaintiffs accusing the Art Institute of Pittsburgh of race and age discrimination in admissions and employment back in court with a new argument, according to documents filed last week.

When you are an employer, knowing who is defined as an “applicant” matters. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) focus on systemic hiring discrimination and obtain large monetary settlements every year.

The OFCCP’s Final Rule prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against employees and applicants who ask about or discuss compensation goes into effect this Monday, January 11. The Rule applies to contracts entered into or modified on or after the effective date. Contracts are considered “modified” if there is any alteration in their terms and conditions, including supplemental agreements and extensions. Those contractors with a significant number of contracts may find it easier to use the effective date of the Rule for compliance, rather than try to determine when they have a new or modified contract.

In addition, the OFCCP has issued the mandatory language required for existing employee handbooks or other manuals and that must be posted electronically or in conspicuous places.

The pressure on colleges to step up prevention and handle sexual-assault cases more effectively has intensified since April 2011. That’s when the federal government signaled stricter enforcement of the gender-equity law Title IX, which compels colleges to resolve students’ reports of rape, whether or not the police are involved.

Click here to access the Chronicle of Higher Education's Title IX online database.

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals created a circuit split with a decision that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) allows disparate impact lawsuits by job applicants. Forty-nine-year-old Richard Villarreal applied for a position with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company but received no response. Approximately two years later, he filed a class action suit against the employer for allegedly violating the ADEA, claiming that R.J. Reynolds used unlawful age-related recruiting characteristics. A federal court judge dismissed Villarreal's disparate impact allegations, ruling that the ADEA permits such claims only from current employees. On appeal, a divided panel of the Eleventh Circuit reversed. Finding the language of the statute unclear, the majority deferred to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) interpretation of the law to hold the ADEA does allow disparate impact suits by applicants. The panel further ruled the plaintiff was entitled to equitable tolling of his claim because he hadn't learned about the age-related recruiting characteristics until after the statute of limitations had run. A dissenting opinion said the majority's decision "has the potential to create bad law in two important areas," noting that the majority reached a different conclusion than three other federal appellate courts to consider the issue.

Reversing summary judgment in favor of an employer, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals instructed courts to focus on the "polluting effect on the workplace environment" of allegedly discriminatory conduct and not the intent behind it. The only African-American employee in her office, the plaintiff claimed that during her yearlong tenure she was subject to racial harassment in the form of comments such as a coworker who stated "we need to bring back lynching," her supervisor instructing her to "get ghetto," and use of the "n word" by multiple employees. When she was fired for excessive absences, the worker sued. A federal court judge dismissed her hostile work environment claims but the federal appellate panel reversed, finding that the lower court incorrectly focused on the intent of the speakers and whether they meant to cause harm. The appropriate inquiry was whether a jury could find the effect of the alleged harassment resulted in a hostile work environment, the Tenth Circuit said, reinstating the employee's claim.

To increase racial diversity in the professoriate, we need to build the pool of Ph.D.s of color, writes Julie R. Posselt, and that means confronting barriers in the admissions process.

By Julie R. Posselt

In a closed-door meeting on Nov. 5, Yale University President Peter Salovey admitted to students of color, “We failed you … I think we have to be a better university. I think we have to do a better job.”

Ahead of Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, research shows millennials are split by race on the practice.

By Sean McElwee & Jesse Rhodes, Al Jazeera America

The United States Supreme Court’s decision to review the constitutionality of the University of Texas at Austin’s affirmative action program has brought renewed debate about the practice. While social science largely supports the proposition that affirmative action is beneficial to African-American and Latino applicants, many Americans feel that policies to remedy racial inequality or to ensure diversity are unnecessary. In 2003, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor famously put an expiration date on racism, expressing a hope that 25 years from then, affirmative action would no longer be necessary.

Like much of corporate America, Silicon Valley has long had a workplace diversity problem. That is leading to the emergence of a new job title: chief diversity officer.

On Wednesday, Pinterest announced its first head of diversity, Candice Morgan, and said it will launch two initiatives to introduce more engineers from underrepresented backgrounds into the field of technology.

An IT employee at Vanguard Group, Rebecca Snow asked for a month off in 2013 to care for her dying mother in hospice and her ailing father.

Not long after her leave, Snow was fired from her computer systems job, despite 13 years of raises and excellent reviews. Colleagues who took a family leave routinely suffered bad reviews, pay cuts, and firings, Snow alleged in a suit she later filed.

Monday, January 11, 2016

A year after Dr. Ishop began her new job here as enrollment manager at the University of Michigan — responsible for shaping the makeup of incoming classes — the university increased the number of minority students in the 2015 freshman class by almost 20 percent, to the highest percentage since 2005.

On October 30, 2015, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released proposed regulations on Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) that reverse a prior position prohibiting wellness programs from requiring an employee to provide his genetic information (which includes information about a spouse or other family members) as a condition of receiving incentives. The proposed regulations would allow a wellness program to offer incentives for an employee’s spouse to provide informa- tion about his or her current or past health status (i.e., health status information) as part of a health risk assessment (HRA).

Jan. 7 — Employment bias based on an individual's sexual orientation is sex discrimination prohibited by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in an amicus brief filed in a federal appeals court Jan. 6.

The latest signs of an improving economy were good enough to help persuade the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade. But the better job market is not good enough to land Chettie McAfee a job.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. ― Former Tennessee associate director of sports medicine Jenny Moshak and two ex-Lady Volunteers strength coaches have settled a gender discrimination and retaliation lawsuit they filed against the university in the fall of 2012.

Oregon law restricting employers from inquiring about a job applicant’s criminal background during the initial stages of the application process (i.e., before a job interview) went into effect on January 1, 2016. Beginning July 1, 2016, the City of Portland will take ban-the-box restrictions a few steps further, with its own ordinance.
Read the story here.
Click here to read previous coverage about this topic on the AAAED blog.
Related content:

The New York City Commission on Human Rights has just released a Human Rights Legal Enforcement Guidance on Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Expression. The Guidance defines eight categories of discriminatory conduct in employment, public accommodations, and housing and provides examples of violations that, in some cases, treat as illegal decisions or behaviors that would generally be considered perfectly lawful under federal law. Accordingly, any employer or business with operations in New York City should familiarize its management employees with the strict requirements of these new Guidelines. Those employers and businesses may find it prudent to adopt NYCHRL-compliant policies on a company-wide basis.

On October 6, 2015, California's Governor Jerry Brown signed the Equal Pay Act into law. The Equal Pay Act amends Labor Code 1197.5 to prohibit employers from paying women less than men for performing the same job. The law, based on the Paycheck Fairness Act that has died in Congress several times, is touted as the most sweeping legislation in the nation to date aimed at closing the wage gap.

The EEOC’s Strategic Enforcement Plan (“SEP”) has, as one of its six national priorities, the elimination of barriers in recruitment and hiring. Lately, the EEOC has seemed to focus upon deafness as a barrier to hiring — or as a reason for termination.

New research from Vanderbilt University analyzes the mental and physiological effects of racism on high-achieving black college students, an issue two scholars called "one of the most urgent concerns in education today."

With the national spotlight focused on diversity in higher education, many institutions are still figuring out how to respond to calls to hire more underrepresented minority professors. Bernard J. Milano, president of the Ph.D. Project — a nonprofit organization committed to diversifying the faculty ranks at the nation’s business schools — talks about how the Ph.D. Project works, its track record, and why faculty diversity matters.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

We join this nation and much of the world in celebrating the arrival of a new year. This annual transition
always occasions powerful symbolism. It beckons us to past reflection but also summons us to future
imaginings.

While it is to be expected that we will look back and think of loved ones no longer with us, and perhaps
of opportunities squandered or lost, it is the promise of the future that should command our greatest
attention: to be able to experience new beginnings, to have another opportunity to fulfill that dream, to
rekindle waning friendships, to strengthen family ties and values that we seek for ourselves. This and
more is what the gift of a new year brings.

So as we begin this New Year, I want to express my deepest and most sincere appreciation for all the
good work you do on behalf of AAAED and for your consummate efforts to expand access, opportunity
and diversity within your work environments and within the communities in which you live. You are truly
making our world a better place for all. It is my honor and privilege to call you my colleagues and
friends.

Happy New Year!

Marshall Rose

The American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity (AAAED) is looking for a candidate to fill a part-time Office Administrator position. The primary responsibilities are to provide office management and administrative support for the Washington, D.C. office of AAAED. The successful candidate will provide support to the AAAED Executive Director.

The Office Administrator’s responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Providing assistance to the AAAED Board and Executive Committee for quarterly and annual meetings and the AAAED annual conference including assembling board reports and other materials, securing a location for meetings, making travel arrangements and other coordination, logistical, and accommodation requirements.

Assisting the chair of the Professional Development and Training Institute to deliver training by identifying locations for the training, assembling the materials, arranging travel, marketing, developing online registration site and processing registrations, coordinating onsite logistics, providing technical support for webinar training, and other logistical support.

Providing assistance to the AAAED Executive Director and AAAED Board to increase AAAED’s membership and raise the visibility of the organization.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Minimum of two years of office management experience and an exposure to event or conference planning.

Excellent written and verbal communication skills and attention to detail.

The American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity and
The Fund for Leadership, Equity, Access and Diversity Internships

The American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity (AAAED) and the Fund for Leadership, Equity,
Access and Diversity (LEAD Fund) offer substantive programs designed to give undergraduate and
graduate students interested in such fields as equal opportunity, diversity and inclusion, affirmative action,
civil rights, EEO law, nonprofit development, human resources, web communications, event
management, public affairs and public service, real-world work experience in the policy, practice and
nonprofit management fields. The program provides interns the chance to increase their knowledge and
awareness of the above issues, enhance their understanding of the way nonprofits work, and observe the
legislative and administrative processes of our federal government. Interns are fully integrated into staff
activities and involved in membership services, development, web content, training delivery and
communications work.

AAAED/LEAD Fund interns work out of our office in downtown Washington, D.C., easily accessible by Metro or several bus lines. Internships are for a length of one school semester or the summer. Start and end dates are flexible to accommodate school schedules and we require a 20-hour minimum weekly commitment.

Assisting with the AAAED Professional Development and Training Institute

LEAD Fund:

Conducting on- and off-line research to support LEAD Fund staff

Occasional administrative work

Drafting fundraising proposals

Assisting with the coordination of LEAD Fund trainings, meetings and educational conferences

Assisting with the publication and dissemination of research studies

Minimum Qualifications

Applicants should have strong writing skills, a desire and ability to work with diverse groups of people, ability to work collaboratively, the ability to multitask, and a strong commitment to social justice issues. They should be enrolled in a four-year college or university or in graduate/professional school.
The internship pays a small monthly stipend.

How to Apply

Interested individuals should email a cover letter detailing their interest in The AAAED/LEAD Fund Internships and include a resume and short writing sample (no longer than three pages) to:
aaaaexecdir[at]gmail.com.

Please note: We are unable to accept phone inquiries or unscheduled interviews.

Register for AAAED Professional Development and Training Institute

AAAED Career Center

Now you can shop for Affirmative Action-related books and support AAAED at the same time. As a partner with Amazon.com, AAAED has selected books that provide useful information about affirmative action, diversity and other equal opportunity issues.